Beware the caveman: Men are no longer happy to hide away in a shed, now they want their very own bespoke retreat

VirginIa Woolf wrote of every woman’s need for A Room Of One’s Own. But now it’s men who are brandishing the slogan and putting a door between themselves and the rest of the house.

The chaps have long had their potting sheds — tumbledown hideaways, all too often festooned with cobwebs — to escape to at the bottom of the garden.

But men are now taking over large swathes of the house, too. In fact, luxury man caves or ‘mantuaries’ are the latest must-have accessory for self-respecting gents.

Luxury man caves or 'mantuaries' are the latest must-have accessory

Domestic male-only sanctuaries have, of course, been around for a while. Ernest Hemingway, for example, transformed the old carriage house of his Key West property into a macho retreat, complete with Cuban cigar-maker’s chair, hunting trophies and, no doubt, a prodigious supply of booze.

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But these days, men aren’t just creating traditional studies for themselves. They’re also carving out sushi bars, bowling alleys and even mock opium dens. The man cave has evolved from its caveman origins into something truly spectacular.

He basically hogs half the available
entertaining space for his boutique interests: antiques, books and other
gentlemanly pursuits

‘People are developing some very large
properties at the moment,’ says Mark Pollack, director of specialist
luxury estate agent, Aston Chase.
‘This means that they are often creating extra spaces underground — and
they need to find uses for them. They are places to pursue interests,
whether it’s a private screening room, or a room for wine tasting.’

One £35 million pile on Aston Chase’s books doesn’t only feature separate ladies’ and gentlemen’s offices, it also boasts a basement ‘man cave’ complete with pool table and, yes, bar. Even the humble potting shed has evolved into something altogether more sophisticated. Dozens of companies, such as Roost (RoostUK.com) now offer upmarket sheds and ‘pods’ — with price tags running into the tens of thousands — where men can hide away in luxury.

As the Daily Mail reported recently, Leicester software engineer Jez Walter spent £15,000 on his own — although he confessed, rather generously, to letting his family use it, too. Even so, it features man cave mod-cons, including a pub, a pool table, touch-screen jukeboxes and even a surround-sound home cinema.

Man caves have long been big in the U.S, where they are often seen as a refuge from house rules and domestic chores

Man caves have long been big in the U.S,
where they are often seen as a refuge from house rules and domestic
chores. But they are also places where men can truly express themselves. As DIY guru Sam Martin wrote in the Chicago Tribune: ‘Men have had an identity problem since the women’s movement. For a while women wanted them to be more sensitive, so they were more sensitive. Then women wanted them to be more manly.

‘One of the things I discovered is when men have their manspace, what they put inside it is an expression of who they are. Manspace is about establishing an identity for a man.’

Gender politics aside, though, man caves are now over here — and we’re doing them better than anyone. One anonymous London homeowner has created a striking wine cellar man cave — complete with a security system that checks his identity by scanning his fingerprints. Could there be a better boys’ toy?

Private bars. Fingerprint scanners on the door. Underground cinemas in which action films can be watched at ear-splitting volumes. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, women aren’t always over the moon when their partners build themselves such a retreat.

Men, after all, can be rather territorial. Rachel Johnson, editor of the venerable women’s weekly, The Lady, knows only too well the perils of a male-only redoubt. Her husband, Ivo, has carved his ‘sanctum’ out of the drawing room of their Notting Hill home.

‘He basically hogs half the available entertaining space for his boutique interests: antiques, books and other gentlemanly pursuits. It’s all library chairs and Lucian Freud-level clutter. Everyone else — even the cleaner — is banned from entering and removing so much as a pizza leaflet from the mounds of detritus he keeps there.’

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Beware the caveman: Men are no longer happy to hide away in a shed, now they want their very own bespoke retreat